Facilities

Woods Receives C-USA Winter Spirit of Service Award

The award recognizes Woods' outstanding community service

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky has announced the 12 student-athletes who will receive the C-USA Winter Spirit of Service awards. Selected to represent Marshall University is women’s basketball player Erica Woods.

The C-USA Spirit of Service Award is designed to recognize the community service efforts of the league’s student-athletes, based upon significant community service, good academic standing and participation in their elected sport. The Winter Spirit of Service award represents the following Conference USA’s sports: men’s and women’s basketball, women’s swimming and diving and men’s and women’s indoor track and field.

Woods, a redshirt junior originally from Bermuda, has been an integral part of the community service efforts for the 2012-13 athletic season. She led basketball clinics at St. Joes preschool and for Huntington Girl Scouts. She has visited patients at Veterans Memorial, volunteered at the Sweet Heart Clinics and led warm-ups before she participated in a community Breast Cancer Awareness Walk.

“It’s an honor not only to represent my family, but also Marshall as an institution,” Woods said. “I always try to do for others before I do for myself and I am humbled and thankful for the award.”

Beyond her philanthropic and outreach work, the Bermuda native played in all 26 games for Marshall and led the team in assists and ranked second in scoring with a 9.5 points per game average. Woods also maintains her class work as a sports management major while performing her most important role as mother to a 2-year-old son.

“The thing you have to understand about Erica is given her background and not being from this country, it would be easy for her to be reserved and she’s not,” head coach Matt Daniel said about Woods. “I think it’s a true testament to the type of person that she is and a testament to the things her parents have instilled in her. I can’t think of a better person to represent Marshall. I’m happy to have the opportunity to coach her and be around her every day. Hopefully she will continue to grow on and off the court.”

With each athletic season (fall, winter, spring) having a different Spirit of Service honoree, Woods will accompany Marshall men’s soccer player, Jack Hopkins, who was given the Fall Spirit of Service award.